Aston Martin Lagonda Concept

At a time when the Big Three could be considering Chapter 11 and iconic brands are teetering on the verge of extinction, a brand founded by an American has been revived.

Lagonda was established by Wilbur Gunn, a native of Troy, Ohio who went to England to set up a European branch of his brother-in-law's Lagonda steam engine equipment manufacturing company.

Incidentally, "Lagonda" is the name of a district that grew up on the banks of Lagonda Creek, itself a corruption of the local Indian name for the river. To cut a long story short, Lagonda became part of Aston Martin in 1947 when it was bought by David Brown (the DB in Aston nomenclature).

Lagonda has now been revived by Aston Martin as being "above Range Rover" and described as a "useable" Roll-Royce, with four seats and all-wheel drive. Although the Lagonda Concept is powered by Aston's V-12, expect diesels, hybrids and "technologies not available to Aston Martin" to feature in the upcoming Lagonda models, which won't appear until 2012 "at the earliest."